Last day of the High Desert Test Sites painted rock auction at @paramountranch – Bidding ends at 5 pm – If you would like to absentee bid, please email us as at info@highdeserttestsites.com, including your choice rock(s) and max bid. Wifi and reception are spotty at the Ranch, but we will do our very best to keep up with bid emails. Check out individual images of the painted rocks at www.highdeserttestsites.com

If you didn't make it today, come visit tomorrow – we still have some really good gems and minerals and the artist pained rock auction will be going strong. #hdtsgemandmineral #hdtspaintedrockauction #paramountranch

Day one of #hdtsgemandmineral and #hdtspaintedrockauction at #paramountranch . So good to reconnect with old friends including some of our early HDTS volunteers and collaborators. Thank you to everyone who turned out and/or contributed!

On the home stretch getting ready for the HDTS Gem Mineral Expo this weekend at #paramontranch ! Here is another one of my favorites: Desert Rose is the colloquial name given to crystal clusters of gypsum or baryte. The crystals form a circular array of flat plates, giving the rock a shape similar to a rose blossom. These rosettes tend to form in arid sandy conditions, like the evaporation of a shallow salt basin. Metaphysically Desert Rose helps to dissolve self-imposed programs that have been running for far too long, releasing them, while assisting in finding an appropriate replacement.

I love the jagged cube-like crystals on fluorite. This stone is said to be highly protective, especially on a psychic level. It helps you discern outside influences at work within yourself and shuts off psychic manipulation. Fluorite also cleanses and stabilizes the aura and is extremely effective against computer and electromagnetic stress. Appropriately positioned, it can block geopathic stress. #hdtsgemandmineral #paramountranch

Spent today working with Kelly cataloging gems and minerals for the #hdtsgemandmineral expo at #paramountranch this weekend! Trying to decide if I should keep or sell this really great piece of petrified wood… Petrified wood (from the Greek root petro meaning "rock" or "stone"; literally "wood turned into stone") is the name given fossilized remains of terrestrial vegetation. It is the result of a tree having turned completely into stone by the process of per mineralization. Petrified Wood works with the Root and Third Eye Chakras to bring healing energies to both physical and emotional issues. It’s ancient energies lend to enhanced past-life work and its grounding energies can encourage one to live life as a spiritual being within this physical realm.

Quiet night in a Blythe hotel. What better time/place to catch up on next week's book club pick, which is about the first Christian hermits, living in solitude in the desert, in the fourth century A.D. "The flight of these men to the desert was neither purely negative nor purely individualistic. They were not rebels against society. True, they were in a certain sense "anarchists" and it will do no harm to think of them in that light… " If you are local come to Kip's Desert Book Club next Monday night – time and location can be found at www.highdeserttestsites.com